This is not suggesting that God forgot about Noah. God does not forget about his children. He never forgets. The God news is that God never forgets about you. If you ever feel that God has abandoned you or that God is not active in your life, this is a reminder that He will act again.

Philippians 1:6

6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. NASV

At dinner one evening Tommy misbehaved. His father, always a strict disciplinarian, reprimanded him saying, "Tommy, if you do not behave you will be sent to your room!" Tommy did not listen. So his father sent him to his room. Later in bed he couldn't remember ever having felt more alone or alienated. He began to cry. Then he heard a noise on the stairs. Footsteps came closer to his room. His door opened and it was his father. Closing the door he came over to Tommy's bed and said, "I love you, son, and I've come to spend the night with you."

Our job is to live our life in faithful obedience. Noah was in the ark for just over a year. In all that time there is no record of God speaking to Noah. Yet Noah had been faithful in caring for the animal's day in and day out.

A little boy was in his older sisters bedroom and he accidentally broke he lamp. It was his older sister job to make the school lunches. So when the he opened up his lunch sack at school, he discovered that his sister made him a broccoli sandwich for lunch. The next day during lunch he opens his lunch sack and there was a liver sandwiches. The little boy said, "She's getting even with me for that lamp I broke." We can identify with that because, even though we know it's wrong, sometimes we try to get even. Sometimes we think that's the way God remembers too. But the Good News is that God is merciful and forgiving.

Noah takes a very significant step and I want you to see that step in verses' 20-22.

Genesis 8:20-22

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.

22 “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night

Shall not cease.” NASV

SECOND -- NOAH REMEMBERED GOD.

We have the tendency to forget God. Do you know when we remember God? We remember God when the chips are down. We remember God when the bottom falls out. We pray, Lord, help me. Lord come quickly. We will pray in King James English. And then when God answers our prayer we will thank God and then we will forget God.

But not Noah. The very first thing that he does when he gets out of the ark is to offer a sacrifice.

Now what would you do after you have been cooped up for over a year? What would be the very first thing that you would do?

Not Noah, the very first thing that he does is to offer a sacrifice to the Lord. We forget to do that, don't we?

Remember the 10 lepers that cried out to Jesus, "Jesus, master have pity on us." And Jesus did and he healed them all. A little time had passed and only one of the lepers sought Jesus out to thank Him. And Jesus response was, "Were not all then cleaned, where are the other nine.

And right now Jesus may be asking you, "Where is your attitude of gratitude? Why don't you remember me? Why art you thankful? Where are all the people that I blessed? Where are all the people that have had their prayers answered by me.

We are so quick to call upon God when we need something, but so rarely do we give God thanks for the mundane things of life.

Noah gave thanks by giving an offering to God. There are many ways we can bring an offering to God.

One simple way is just to say grace over a meal.

A Second way is to bring the tithe to God house.

Proverbs 3:9-10

9 Honor the Lord from your wealth,

And from the first of all your produce;

10 So your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow with new wine. NASV

Every Christian should recognize that they should give a minimum of what God provides. A minimum of ten percent.

Most people pay the rent or house payment first, then there is the groceries, and o, there is the bills. My goodness, there is nothing left over for God. I guess we will have to give God something next month.

But God word says, Proverbs 3:9-10

9 Honor the Lord from your wealth,

And from the first of all your produce;

Someone says, "I can't afford to give to God." Actually you have it backwards, you can not afford not to give to God.

A Third Way To Remember God is - to commit the day to God.

And that is what Noah did. Before the built a house, before he planted a garden, or before he enjoyed the sunlight, he remembered God by offering a sacrifice.

Ecclesiastes 12:1

1 Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them” NASV

Jeremiah 51:50

50 ...Remember the Lord from afar... NASV

Jeremiah knew that his county was going to be taken captive into Babylon for 70 years. He knew that his people would be surround by seductive influences.

Jeremiah is saying, when you are all alone, God will not forgotten you, you should not forget God.

God remembered Noah. It would be great if the story ended right here. But the story does not end her. Sadly the story takes a turn for a worse.

So here is Noah with a brand new start and sin sneaks in. And sin sneaks into the life of Noah. What happened? Let's look at it.

Genesis 9:20-28

20 Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. 21 And he drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. 25 So he said, “Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers.” 26 He also said, “Blessed be the Lord, The God of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant. 27 “May God enlarge Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant.” 28 And Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood. NASV

I notice that God did not gloss over Noah's life. He gives us the whole story, warts and all. God likes to show us Noah's strength as well as his weaknesses.

Why is that? God wants us to not only learn from Noah's victories but also from his defeats.

And it gives hope to a person like me, because I am flawed. I am not perfect. It is encouraging to me that even when I fail there can still be hope.

There are a number of things that we can learn from the fall of Noah.

One -- Noah's fall teaches us that anyone can fall into sin.

No one is above temptation. Listen to what the Bible says about Noah.

Genesis 6:9

9 These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. NASV

In 2 Peter 2:5 Noah is called, "The preacher of righteousness."

And yet here is Noah, drunk.

Remember Peter, "He was in the upper room and he said, "Thought all the disciples deny you, I will never deny you."

I am above it Lord. You can count on me.

One -- Noah's fall teaches us that anyone can fall into sin.

Two -- Not only can anyone fall into sin, but anyone can fall into sin at anytime.

Noah withstood temptation for 600 years. It happened to Moses. He was at the very door to the promised land. And Moses's congregation begins to complain again as usual. They were complaining about being thirsty. And Moses got ticked off, and he took God's staff and he slammed it twice against a rock. And water comes out of the rock. And Moses says, "You rebels, must we give you water as we have done in the past. Then God privately calls Moses to the side and says, "What is this must we get water out of the rock? Moses you are taking credit for what I am doing. You're robing me of my glory. Because of that you will not enter into the promised land.

That seems harsh, doesn't it? But to whom much is given, much is required.

King David is probably in his 50's and while his army has gone forth in battle. And that's where David should have been. He was relaxing up on his roof top and he sees a very beautiful woman bathing herself. He commanded that she be brought to his room. And the end result is that he had an adulterer's relationship. And David tries to cover up that sin, and he has the lady's husband

murdered and then David marries the lady.

This all happened after David knew the Lord for many years. He should have know better.

Noah, Moses and David were all men who knew and loved the Lord, and yet in their latter years they sinned.

Our goal should not only to start the Christian life well, but to finish it well.

Paul the apostle put it this way:

Acts 20:24

24 “But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, in order that I may finish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God. NASV

The 3rd- thing we see about Noah is found in verse 21. We see the destructive power of sin.

Genesis 9:21

21 And he drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. NASV

Think of how many people have had their lives destroyed by alcohol. I can not think of one good thing that comes from alcohol. I have seen marriages and lives torn apart by alcohol.

I wonder what happened in Noah's life after being drunk. You know what, we do not know.

Nothing is recorded about Noah except his death. The last 350 year

One -- Noah's fall teaches us that anyone can fall into sin.

Two -- Not only can anyone fall into sin, but anyone can fall into sin at anytime.

3rd - We see the destructive power of sin.

But now notice verse 22.

4th - When someone sins, we are to act in love.

Genesis 9:22

22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. NASV

What Ham should have done was to cover his father up. Maybe he said something like this, "Dad is always telling us how to live, you ought to go and check out dad right now. He drunk and totally nude. I though I was suppose to be a man of God."

Well his brothers dealt with the sin properly.

Genesis 9:23

23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father's nakedness. NASV

Now what are they doing? They are acting in love. The Bible says, "Love covers a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8

You see, when someone sins, we should seek to help them, to restore them.

If you see a Christian fall into sin, what should you do?

James 5:19-20

19 My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth, and one turns him back,

20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death, and will cover a multitude of sins. NASV

What should I do if I see a brother in sin? I should seek to turn them from their sin.

Paul the apostle puts it this way:

Galatians 6:1

1Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted. NASV

The word restore is a medical word meaning to set a broken bone. You do that with gentleness. Do you know why? It might be you next time.

And if we are sinned against we are not to get even.

A husband and wife were having a quarrel over the breakfast table. The quarrel remained unfinished as it was time to get to work. The wife, having trouble with the zipper on her dress, asked for assistance. In a huff, the husband freed the zipper and ran then angrily ran it up and down rapidly several times, then left. That afternoon, when the wife returned

from work, there was a car in the driveway with a man lying on his back underneath the car, except for his lower half. Remembering the breakfast incident, she went over, grasped the zipper on his fly, and zipped it down and up several times and stomped into the house. There, to her surprise, sat her husband drinking coffee. In great embarrassment she explained to her husband what she had done. He in turn rushed outside to find his neighbor out cold. When the wife had grasped his zipper, he had reflexively tried to sit up and knocked himself out. Only God is wise enough to handle vengeance.

It may be you are here today and you are involved in a trespass. And you need to be restored. And maybe you don't even know Jesus Christ as your Savior.

We are not to dwell on the sin of others.

Sen. Mark Hatfield recounts the following history: James Garfield was a lay preacher and principal of his denominational college. They say he was ambidextrous and could simultaneously write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other. In 1880, he was elected president of the United States, but after only six months in office, he was shot in the back with a revolver. He never lost consciousness. At the hospital, the doctor probed the wound with his little finger to seek the bullet. He couldn't find it, so he tried a silver-tipped probe. Still he couldn't locate the bullet. They took Garfield back to Washington, D.C. Despite

the summer heat, they tried to keep him comfortable. He was growing very weak. Teams of doctors tried to locate the bullet, probing the wound over and over. In desperation they asked Alexander Graham Bell, who was working on a little device called the telephone to see if he could locate the metal inside the president's body. He came, he sought, and he too failed. The president hung on through July, through August, but in September he finally died-not from the wound but from infection. The repeated probing, which the physicians thought would help the man, eventually killed him. So it is with people who dwell too long on the sin of others and refuse to release it to God.

There is a story of a physician whose books were examined after he died. It was discovered that a number of the accounts were crossed out and the doctor had written across the page: "FORGIVE -- TOO POOR TO PAY." The Physician's wife decided that many of these people could pay, and so she took some of these accounts to court. The judge asked one question: "Is this your husband's handwriting?" When she replied that it was, he said: "Then there is no tribunal in the land that can obtain this money, when he has written the word 'FORGIVEN'." This is a story from the heart of God. When God says it is forgiven, then it is forgiven, and there is no guilt and no liability any longer.